Chorus May it ever be our watchword. "Conquer and Prevail." Hail to thee, our Alma Mater Dear old Wofford, hail!

When we from thy halls are parted, And life's battle's on, Thy great spirit shall inspire us Till eternal dawn.

Wofford shares the tune to its alma mater with many other institutions of higher education, including Cornell, Vanderbilt, Birmingham Southern, and the University of North Carolina. The lyrics are credited to Dr. Keener C. Frazer '20, who went on to become a distinguished professor of international law and political science at the University of North Carolina. However, the oldest version of the alma mater in print is found in 1923 Wofford Journal, with the first line "On the city's western border." This apparently was simply an editing error, as the 1925 Bohemian has the present reference to the northern border. In fact, in those days, Wofford was on the city's outskirts.

In the 1960s, many area colleges began replacing their traditional alma maters with more original tunes. A professor and student at Wofford wrote a new alma mater in 1966. This proposal never passed the Student Government Association, as it had strong opposition from the alumni, students and The Old Gold and Black.

Singing of the alma mater remains a popular tradition at Wofford. In addition to formal occasions such as convocation and commencement, the alma mater is sung when the Terriers score on the football field and at the end of every home basketball game.

The Wofford College motto already was in use as part of the seal of the college on a diploma dating from 1857, but existing records do not indicate precisely when it was adopted.

The motto is a quotation from Horace’s Odes (III.2.18), published around 23 BCE. The poem is a famous one, the source of the phrase dulce et decorum est, pro patria mori (“it is sweet and befitting to die for one’s country”). It would have been familiar to the classically trained faculty and students in the early days of the college’s existence. In fact, based on early course catalogs in the archives, sophomores would have read the complete poem in the original as part of the normal course of study.

Poetry, especially Horace’s, is notoriously difficult to translate faithfully into English, because poetic language implies a great deal that the literal meaning of the words may not. Often, different translations vary widely. Here are a few examples from the Sandor Teszler Library of how this phrase has been translated: